MSI GX720 review, gaming portable with Turbo functions

Gaming is going mobile, extending their product range MSI is offering the GX series portables for the person who wants to have the option of gaming entertainment on the go. Today we at Madshrimps take a close look at MSI´s GX720 model, a good all-round system with gaming capabilities, rich on multimedia features and a retro Turbo overclock button, but is it worth your money? Read on and find out!

Introduction & Inside the box

Introduction

Micro Star International was founded 22 years ago, back in 1986. From then on MSI grew to become one of the world largest mainboard manufacturer as well as being a market leader in the video card industry. But there is more, MSI is specialized in the server industry, notebooks, barebone systems, add-on cards, communication and many more consumer electronics. When you go visit your nearby computer retailer the chance that you stumble upon a MSI product is very real, not just because MSI offers a wide range of products but also because of their large availability in the entire world. Everyone who has done something with computers probable recognize these three letters in group.

The GX720 we're having a look at comes with many great features and is very up-to-date considering it was released a few months back. Nowadays the GX720 is priced just over € 1000 which is a very acceptable price for portables with these specifications, the question remains to be asked: how much do you get in return for such an amount of money, it's not like you spend € 1000 every day, right?

Package and inside the box

A black box covered with a 3D casted 'G', its catchy font is very typically for gaming products and MSI succeeded into not over-labelling the cover. People looking for a gaming portable will half automatically be looking at MSI's box because it has games all over it, not literally of course; MSI rather stacks their games inside the box then on the outside. Yes, we did find a game inside, have look at what else is to be found too:

120W AC adapter

AC cord

2nd battery

G-mouse

LCD cleaner tissue

Windows Vista Home Premium

PC Game: Rainbow Six: Vegas 2

MSI drivers and recovery cd's

Warranty paper, quick guidelines

Yup! Two batteries, a gaming mouse and RB Vegas 2, these are some nice extras which you won't find with many other portables, the crowd will certainly love this even though some of them probable already owns that particular pc game. The mouse comes with many features which are also to be found on many other great gaming mice: USB cable connectivity, sideway programmable buttons, dpi selection button, weight adjustments, ... The bottom side says MSI but browsing around I found out that the G-mouse is nothing but a relabelled Trust Laser Gamer Mouse Elite GM-4800 which comes at a price close to € 50. More information about the mouse can be found in this YouTube video.

Next to all those extras we found the GX720 notebook itself. The outside cover is mainly made out of brushed aluminium giving it a somewhat high-end look; downside of course is that you'll quickly stumble upon fingerprints and other marks. To accentuate the gaming aspect MSI designers added peaces of red plastic, essentially this is exactly what a gamer would prefer but on the other hand it will make the GX720 to seem a bit misplaced in any normal office environment.

MSI GX720 portable

On top of this we got a nice backpack especially designed for the MSI gaming notebooks. Again a very catchy design specially chosen to please to gaming crowd.

G-backpack

That's it for the outside, let's have a few macro shots of the MSI GX720 gaming notebook and look what specifications it comes with ->